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The level of a “fact” or “law” is simply that which is empirical, and cannot be proven wrong.

The level of a “fact” or “law” is simply that which is empirical, and cannot be proven wrong.

A classic example of the Scientific Method used stemmed from a simple bet.  In the 1872 a railroad baron named Leland Stanford made a wager that a horse’s hooves do not touch the ground at some point in a gallop. To test the hypothesis, photographer Eadweard Muybridge [http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/index.htm] was hired; he installed a series of trip wires were rigged from a long wall about two inches from the ground, each one tied to a camera’s shutter facing the wall; the experiment called for the horse to run past the wall, tripping the wires and getting a photo at each point.  The results were factual and conclusive: a horse at a running gallop does have all four hooves off the ground.

A classic example of the Scientific Method being used stemmed from a simple bet.  In 1872 a [[railway|railroad]] baron named [[Leland Stanford]] made a wager that a [[horse|horse’s]] hooves do not touch the ground at some point in a [[gallop]]. To test the hypothesis, photographer [[Eadweard Muybridge]] [http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/index.htm] was hired; he installed a series of trip wires which were rigged from a long wall about two inches from the ground, each one tied to a [[camera|camera’s]] shutter facing the wall; the experiment called for the horse to run past the wall, tripping the wires and getting a photo at each point.  The results were factual and conclusive: a horse at a running gallop does have all four hooves off the ground.

The agreement of an observation or experiment with a hypothesis does not on its own prove the hypothesis correct. It merely makes its correctness more likely. The hypothesis must agree with other aspects of the scientific framework of knowledge, and survive the test of repeated experiments by other people working independently. Over time, the accumulation of data will tend to confirm or refute a hypothesis.  

The agreement of an observation or experiment with a hypothesis does not on its own prove the hypothesis correct. It merely makes its correctness more likely. The hypothesis must agree with other aspects of the scientific framework of knowledge, and survive the test of repeated experiments by other people working independently. Over time, the accumulation of data will tend to confirm or refute a hypothesis.